{"id":191868,"url":"https://alion.io/job/zendesk-senior-staff-data-engineer","title":"Senior Staff Data Engineer","company":{"id":369,"name":"Zendesk","domain":"zendesk.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/zendesk","size_band":"1001-5000","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Workday","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":84,"open_postings":28,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0.607,"repost_share":0.071,"time_to_fill_p50_days":30,"computed_at":"2026-10-27T05:46:45Z"}},"role":"Data Science","role_family":"Data Science","seniority":"staff","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"hybrid","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"explicit","locations":["Austin, United States","Madison, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":200000,"max":300000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":300000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":10,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"AI Agents","optional":false},{"name":"Databricks","optional":false},{"name":"dbt","optional":false},{"name":"ETL/ELT","optional":false},{"name":"Go","optional":false},{"name":"Java","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"Scala","optional":false},{"name":"Snowflake","optional":false},{"name":"SQL","optional":false},{"name":"Alation","optional":true},{"name":"Apache Kafka","optional":true},{"name":"AWS","optional":true},{"name":"Fivetran","optional":true},{"name":"GitHub Actions","optional":true},{"name":"Kubernetes","optional":true},{"name":"Looker","optional":true},{"name":"LookML","optional":true},{"name":"Model Context Protocol","optional":true},{"name":"MySQL","optional":true},{"name":"Tableau","optional":true},{"name":"Terraform","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-09-02T17:42:47Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-09-14","last_verified_at":"2026-10-27T05:04:44Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":54,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":1,"flags":[],"days_open":54},"description":"Job Description\nSenior Staff Data Engineer- Enterprise Semantic Layer\nOur Enterprise Data & Analytics (EDA) team is looking for an experienced Senior Staff Engineer to lead the architecture and engineering of an Enterprise AI-ready semantic data platform. We are building an AI-ready Enterprise data foundation that enables analytics, applications, and AI agents to operate from the same trusted understanding of business data.\nOur platform includes trusted foundational data models across Customer, Finance, GTM, and Product; a governed semantic layer for metrics, dimensions, entities, relationships, and business context; and conversational analytics over enterprise data.\nAs a Senior Staff Engineer on our EDA Engineering Team, this role sits at the intersection of data engineering, data architecture, software engineering, and AI. The successful candidate will partner with architects, data engineers, data scientists, Analysts Teams, and AI teams to establish reusable platform capabilities that are reliable, observable, secure, governed, and practical to adopt. This role is ideal for someone who can set technical direction across multiple teams while remaining hands-on with architecture, prototyping, and production delivery.\nWhat you get to do every single day:\nDefine the enterprise semantic architecture for metrics, dimensions, entities, relationships, grain, time semantics, and business context over trusted foundational data models.\n\nEstablish reusable semantic contracts so analytics, applications, and AI systems operate from consistent business definitions and governed data products.\n\nEvaluate and recommend the long-term semantic platform architecture, including Snowflake Semantic Views, dbt Semantic Layer / MetricFlow, Cube, and other approaches.\n\nDesign and build metadata-driven platform capabilities for semantic discovery, deterministic metric computation, query generation, governed access, versioning, and extensibility.\n\nDefine how conversational analytics systems consume enterprise semantics and structured data, partnering with AI teams on building Data Agents and other AI interfaces.\n\nEstablish golden datasets and evaluation practices for semantic interpretation, generated-query accuracy, metric correctness, and analytical answer quality.\n\nLead complex, multi-team initiatives from architecture and proof of concept through production adoption, operational support, and continuous improvement.\n\nInfluence build-versus-buy decisions, mentor engineers, and raise the technical bar across Data Engineering, Analytics, BI, and AI.\n\nTreat the platform as an internal product by improving contributor experience, documentation, onboarding, adoption, and migration from duplicate implementations.\n\nWhat you bring to the role:\nBasic Qualifications\nBachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Data Engineering, Data Science, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.\n\n10+ years of experience in data engineering, data architecture, distributed systems, software engineering, or related platform disciplines, with significant technical leadership experience.\n\nAt least 3+ years of hands on experience in Semantic Layer implementation\n\nDemonstrated experience designing and building large-scale data, analytics, semantic, developer, or platform systems used by multiple teams. (ex. Atscale, Cube.dev, DBT Metric Flow, etc.) in production environments\n\nDeep expertise with modern analytical warehouses and transformation frameworks, including Snowflake or Databricks, dbt, and cloud-based ELT pipelines.\n\nStrong software engineering fundamentals and production experience with SQL and at least one programming language such as Python, Java, Go, Scala, or similar.\n\nDeep understanding of dimensional, entity-based, and analytical data modeling, including grain, relationships, time dimensions, and metric definitions.\n\nExcellent communication skills and the ability to collaborate with executives, architects, engineers, analysts, data scientists, and business stakeholders.\n\nProven ability to mentor senior engineers and influence technical decisions across multiple teams.\n\nPreferred Experience\nExperience with one or more of Snowflake Semantic Views, dbt Semantic Layer / MetricFlow, Cube, LookML / Looker, or comparable semantic and metrics platforms.\n\nExperience with text-to-SQL, agent evaluation, MCP, or conversational analytics.\n\nExperience defining deterministic boundaries between governed metric computation and probabilistic AI reasoning.\n\nExperience evaluating vendors or open-source platforms and translating architectural recommendations into an adoption roadmap.\n\nWhat does our data stack looks like:\nELT (MYSQL CDC, Kafka, Snowflake, Fivetran, dbt Core & DBT Cloud, Astronomer, Alation, Montecarlo)\n\nBI (Tableau, Looker)\n\nInfrastructure (AWS, Kubernetes, Terraform, Github Actions)\n\nThe US annualized base salary range for this position is $200,000.00-$300,000.00. This position may also be eligible for bonus, benefits, or related incentives. While this range reflects the minimum and maximum value for new hire salaries for the position across all US locations, the offer for the successful candidate for this position will be based on job related capabilities, applicable experience, and other factors such as work location. Please note that the compensation details listed in US role postings reflect the base salary only (or OTE for commissions based roles), and do not include bonus, benefits, or related incentives.The intelligent heart of customer experience\nZendesk software was built to bring a sense of calm to the chaotic world of customer service. Today we power billions of conversations with brands you know and love.\nZendesk believes in offering our people a fulfilling and inclusive experience. Our hybrid way of working, enables us to purposefully come together in person, at one of our many Zendesk offices around the world, to connect, collaborate and learn whilst also giving our people the flexibility to work remotely for part of the week.\nAs part of our commitment to fairness and transparency, we inform all applicants that artificial intelligence (AI) or automated decision systems may be used to screen or evaluate applications for this position, in accordance with Company guidelines and applicable law.\nZendesk is an equal opportunity employer, and we’re proud of our ongoing efforts to foster global diversity, equity, & inclusion in the workplace. Individuals seeking employment and employees at Zendesk are considered without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, marital status, medical condition, ancestry, disability, military or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. We are an AA/EEO/Veterans/Disabled employer. If you are based in the United States and would like more information about your EEO rights under the law, please click here.\nZendesk endeavors to make reasonable accommodations for applicants with disabilities and disabled veterans pursuant to applicable federal and state law. If you are an individual with a disability and require a reasonable accommodation to submit this application, complete any pre-employment testing, or otherwise participate in the employee selection process, please send an e-mail to  with your specific accommodation request.","description_format":"text","description_chars":7417,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":10,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"bachelor","optional":false},"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Equity"],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United States","iso":"US","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["CRM Software","Customer Support & Help Desk Software"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-09-02T17:42:47Z"},{"event":"close","at":"2026-09-04T03:08:12Z"},{"event":"reopen","at":"2026-09-14T21:10:11Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":18,"band":"cold","label":"Long shot","p_open":1,"p_active":0.499,"p_room":0.36,"age_days":54,"expected_fill_days":30,"reasons":["conf:0","stale_co","velocity","win:tail","crowd:brand"],"computed_at":"2026-10-27T05:46:45Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":300000,"is_top_pay":true},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/zendesk-senior-staff-data-engineer","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/zendesk-senior-staff-data-engineer.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-27T07:03:13Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":7392,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-28T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":369},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=369"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fzendesk-senior-staff-data-engineer"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fzendesk-senior-staff-data-engineer"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fzendesk-senior-staff-data-engineer"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/zendesk-senior-staff-data-engineer\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fzendesk-senior-staff-data-engineer"}]}